What are the best MTG cards ever made? There have been many, many Magic: The Gathering cards printed over the years, but most of them are destined to sit in dusty drawers, untouched and unloved. Not these all-stars. Here, we've drawn up a list of the most powerful and popular, old and new, from all of Magic: The Gathering's many formats.
We've looked back across countless MTG sets, from recent releases all the way back to Alpha, to find the coolest, most jaw-droppingly powerful cards in all of Magic: The Gathering. Some of these can still be played in your MTG Arena decks, though several have also done time on an MTG banlist or two.
- Badgermole Cub - the best new card
- Sol Ring - the best Commander card
- Craterhoof Behemoth - the best go-wide finisher
- Gaea's Cradle - the best MTG land you can actually play
- The One Ring - the best artifact
- Griselbrand - the best reanimator target
- Swords to Plowshares - the best targeted removal
- Urza's Saga - the most value from one land
- Lurrus of the Dream-Den - the strongest MTG mechanic
- Pack Rat - A limited powerhouse
- Oko, Thief of Crowns - the best MTG planeswalker
- Contract From Below - technically disqualified
- Tinker - the best MTG tutor card
- Deathrite Shaman - the best mana dork MTG card
- Brainstorm - the best card draw spell
- Cyclonic Rift - the best boardwipe
- Mishra's Bauble - the best free spell
- Teferi's Protection - the best protection spell
- An Untapped Island - the scariest card to face
How we chose the best MTG cards
1. Badgermole Cub
The best new MTG card
When WotC added mythic rare cards to MtG in 2008, lead designer Mark Rosewater stated that the ideally, mythic rare cards would feel "very special and unique", "cards like Planeswalkers, most legends, and epic-feeling creatures and spells", and not just "each set's most powerful tournament-level cards."
Badgermole Cub, printed in Avatar: the Last Airbender, is a 2/2 for two mana, which turns one of your lands into a tiny creature, and means all of your mana dorks add an extra green mana whenever you tap them. It is an incredibly efficient mana accelerator that is seeing play as a four-of in Standard, Modern, Pioneer, Legacy, and Commander.
If this thing was a named legendary creature - even if it was a new version of that weird little rat Loot - it might feel like a mythic rare, purely on the basis that "cute little guys" is an established archetype for extremely rare and powerful creatures. As it stands, it feels like a rare from a Modern Horizons set that was mysteriously printed into Standard.
2. Sol Ring
The best Commander card
Next up we have a freebie. Sol Ring is the best Commander card in existence, and the most commonly played card too (not counting basic lands). Providing two colorless mana and only costing one, an early Sol Ring is unparalleled mana acceleration that can completely warp the course of any EDH game.
A colorless artifact, Sol Ring is playable in every single Commander deck, and unless you're deliberately trying to reduce the power of your deck, you should be using it too. If Sol Ring wasn't reprinted in every Commander product ever, it would be super expensive; as is, you can pick one up for a couple of dollars.
3. Craterhoof Behemoth
The best go-wide finisher
If you've played against any kind of green go-wide deck in Commander, and especially if you've faced an elves deck, you've probably seen a Craterhoof Behemoth. It's an ubiquitous win condition, that requires lots of green ramp (or green-mana hungry tutor effects) to put into play.
The Behemoth is a 5/5 green creature, with the keyword haste handily stapled on, that costs a colossal three green and five generic mana to cast. The stats aren't worth the cost, but its enter-the-battlefield ability is a game ender: all creatures you control gain trample and +X/+X until end of turn, where X is the number of creatures you control.
This increases the total amount of power on your side of the board by the number of creatures you control squared. It's an incredible pump effect, and because it's attached to a creature and not an Instant or Sorcery, you can find it using green's excellent tutor effects. Unless your opponents can counter the 'hoof, or deploy a board wipe or fog effect at instant speed, they're toast!
4. Gaea's Cradle
The best MTG land you can actually play
An land only needs to produce two mana when you tap it to be, objectively, broken. Gaea's Cradle produces one green mana for each creature you control. It's a terrible first land drop, but as long as you have a way to make creatures, it's the most broken mana-producing land in the game.
It's legal in Legacy, Vintage, and Commander, so this is a card you can realistically get to the table - providing you can afford to buy a copy. It's a reserved list card, that trades for hundreds or thousands of dollars depending on condition.
Tolarian Academy is arguably more powerful, producing one blue mana for each artifact you control, which are easier to generate and harder to kill. But it's only playable as a one-off in Vintage (and formats that follow the Vintage ban-list, like Canadian Highlander), so we're giving the spot to Gaea's Cradle.
5. The One Ring
The strongest artifact MTG card
The One Ring is probably best known for Post Malone spending $2 million to buy a limited edition printing of it, which is, admittedly, pretty exceptional. But it should be best known for being an absolute back breaker of a mid-range artifact in constructed formats.
For four mana, when the One Ring enters, you've got protection from everything for a turn, which pulls hard on aggro strategy's brakes. Then you can tap it, put a burden counter on it, and draw as many cards as it has burden counters. This is a ridiculous source of card advantage, and it's indestructible, so your opponent has very few ways to deal with it.
The One Ring's controller takes damage each upkeep from the burden counters, but who cares? It draws six cards in three turns. If you've got a Sheoldred the Apocalypse in play, you'll be gaining life. And since The One Ring is legendary, if you have multiple copies in your deck, you can cast a new One Ring and sacrifice the old one, resetting the counters.
The One Ring was printed directly into Modern, so it has never been legal in Standard or Pioneer. It has also been banned in Modern, because it was miserable to play against. But it's still a relevant card in Legacy, Vintage, and Commander.
6. Griselbrand
The best reanimation target
Griselbrand is everything you want in a reanimation target. A 7/7 flying demon with lifelink, he can wipe out an opponent in three turns on his own - but it's his activated ability that makes him a true reanimator all-star. For seven life, Griselbrand lets you draw seven cards, refilling your hand and probably causing you to discard cards at the end of your turn to put another reanimation target into your bin.
Griselbrand is banned in Commander and isn't legal in Pioneer. For those formats, look to Atraxa, Grand Unifier, who has vigilance and deathtouch on top of flying and lifelink, and an almost-as-powerful card draw effect. When she enters, you look at the top ten cards of your library, and for each card type put up to one card of that type into your hand (the rest of the cards being tucked to the bottom of your library).
7. Swords to Plowshares
The best removal spell
Printed in Magic's first ever set and still unbeaten, Swords to Plowshares costs just one white mana to exile a creature at instant speed. Sure, its controller gains life equal to its power, but that's a very small price to pay to ensure you don't lose the game - and one-mana instant speed removal for any target will stop you from losing the game.
The exile effect is important too, as it denies any 'on death' triggered abilities, and stops your opponent reanimating the creature later - very handy if said creature is Griselbrand…
8. Urza's Saga
The most value from a single land card
Urza's Saga is a one-card value engine for any deck that cares about artifacts. It's both a land and a saga enchantment; it offers you so much value that it's best to think of it as an enchantment that costs no mana, at the expense of skipping a land-drop for the turn.
The first stage of the saga lets it tap for colorless mana; the second stage lets you pay two mana and tap it to create a 0/0 colorless Construct artifact creature that gets +1/+1 for each artifact you control; and the third stage lets you search your library for a 0- or 1-mana artifact and put it directly into play.
Over three turns, you can hopefully generate one mana, create two Constructs, and tutor a Sol Ring, Shadowspear, or Skullclamp straight onto the board. In Vintage, you can even grab a Mox or Black Lotus; the fact that this tutors for those restricted artifacts means Urza's Saga is restricted in Vintage as well.
And, unlike the arguably more powerful Gaea's Cradle or Tolarian Academy, this isn't on the Reserved List - you may actually be able to buy a copy.
9. Lurrus of the Dream-Den
The strongest MTG mechanic
Our next entry is a creature which arguably got a whole mechanic nerfed - though there were certainly other problematic companions that helped it out. It's fair to say Wizards of the Coast dropped the ball with Companion, which lets you play with an eighth card in your hand, provided you meet restrictive deck-building requirements.
It definitely underestimated Lurrus of the Dream-Den, which could bring back permanents costing two or less from the graveyard. But luckily the downside, only being able to run permanents with a mana cost of two or lower, would dissuade most decks from using Lurrus, right? It's not like there's an archetype that relies on low-cost, low-to-the-ground creatures to win games swiftly, right?
While this cute nightmare made a big splash in Standard, it was even more deadly in eternal formats, where a higher caliber of one and two drops could be found. Lurrus is one of the few cards to be banned in Vintage, the most high-powered MTG format (there was no point Restricting it, since you only need one copy of the card in your deck).
After Wizards made the Companion mechanic far weaker, Lurrus was unbanned in Vintage. But even needing three mana to bring it to your hand, Lurrus was still too good for Modern, Pioneer, and Legacy, and ate a belated ban.
10. Pack Rat
The best MTG card in Limited
Pack Rat is one of, if not the biggest Limited bomb ever printed. This unassuming rodent, printed in Return to Ravnica, basically required an immediate answer, or it would multiply out of control, each copy making the rat horde, and the rats themselves, grow bigger and bigger. It didn't even matter what other cards were in your deck, if you could play an early Pack Rat and use its ability, the game was yours.
Umezawa's Jitte from Kamigawa also deserves a shoutout for making creature combat a nightmare. It also fit in any deck thanks to its colorless casting cost, but we chose Pack Rat for this slot because its apocalyptic approach to winning games is just so much more dramatic.
11. Oko Thief of Crowns
The best planeswalker card
Oko, Thief of Crowns has indeed stolen Jace the Mindsculptor's crown as the best planeswalker. In true fey style, if you've never met this trickster before, you would not see the threat until it was far too late.
Oko's abilities are great, and highly versatile - being able to produce blockers and turn an opponent's impactful permanents into useless elks is fab. The real power comes in, though, when the abilities are combined with Oko's three-mana casting cost and loyalty values. He can be in play by turn two with a little ramp, and while the food token from his +2 ability isn't that impactful, he's then sitting at six loyalty - and dealing with him is an utter nightmare.
His controller can turn that food token into an elk to protect Oko, or shrink an opponent's threat into an elk. Oko's direct impact may not be flashy, but the opponent has to answer him - and all the time they're expending resources trying to remove the three-mana planeswalker, his controller can keep building up their own board, getting further and further ahead.
Fortunately, Oko is banned almost everywhere - he's not even playable in Legacy. If you get the option to grab him in a Legacy Cube draft, snap him up.
12. Contract From Below
Technically disqualified
Contract From Below is one of the best MTG cards ever printed. Just look at the value it provides. For just one black mana, you get a whole new hand of cards - that's absurd! Put four copies in your deck and mulligan until you find one of them.
The trouble is, of course, that you can only run Contract From Below if you're playing for ante, i.e. gambling with your cards. Ante cards are on the very short list of cards that are banned in Vintage (not to mention every other format). Perhaps there is a refined club of billionaires who exclusively play Magic as Richard Garfield intended - cards without set symbols, no sleeves, no card limits in deck construction - but other than that, this powerhouse is purely a collector's item.
13. Tinker
The best MTG tutor card
Tinker does one better than the best tutors. It doesn't just fetch a card to your hand, it plonks an artifact of your choice right onto the battlefield.
Unfortunately, since the card's included in the Commander banlist, and isn't you're unlikely to experience the joy of trading a treasure for a Blightsteel Colossus - though you're allowed to run a single copy in Vintage, if you've got the cash.
14. Deathrite Shaman
The best mana dork MTG card
While Deathrite Shaman can't end games by swinging for damage, it's an incredible mana ramp card. As long as you're in a format where you can play Fetchlands to fuel your graveyard, it's essentially an upgraded Llanowar Elves that can heal you and damage your opponents without having to go through their creatures. Players jokingly call it Magic's first Planeswalker, since it's got three abilities and has such an outsized impact.
Unfortunately, the card has made its way onto the banlist for Legacy and Modern, the most accessible 60 card formats with those lands, and without them, Deathrite Shaman is a lot less funky. But it's an easy recommendation for any Commander deck running green and black.
15. Brainstorm
The best card draw spell
Brainstorm proves that you don't have to draw 50 cards to be the best card draw spell in Magic. In fact, while you get to look at three, after casting it you have the same number of cards in your hand as before.
Only playable in a select few formats, Brainstorm's strength lies in the sheer amount of card selection it gives you. While you have to put two cards back on top of your library, this isn't as much of a downside as you might think.
After all, in the first few turns of a Magic game you aren't casting every card in your hand. Brainstorm lets you stack the deck so you have exactly the cards you need, precisely when you need them. What's more, if you don't like the cards you put back on top, it's trivially easy to find an effect to shuffle way them away.
As a one-mana instant that replaces itself when you play it, Brainstorm fits naturally into decks that want to rapidly cycle through cards. It's handy for combo strategies, builds your Storm count, pumps Prowess creatures, puts an Instant into the graveyard to get you towards Delirium or enlarge a Tarmogoyf, and gets you closer to Threshold or pays for Delve costs…
And sometimes you would rather have cards on top of your deck than in your hand. Cast it on your opponent's end step to put a Miracle card on top of your library so it's your first draw of the turn and you can cast it for its Miracle cost; put a Crashing Footfalls on top of your library so that your Bloodbraid Elf will cascade into it; combine it with a set of Squadron Hawks and it's effectively a Time Walk.
It slices, it dices, and all for one mana!
16. Cyclonic Rift
The best board wipe
Though more recent cards like Toxic Deluge and Damn give Cyclonic Rift a run for its money, we say you still can't beat this classic busted boardwipe.
There are three factors to Cyclonic Rift's greatness. It can be a two-mana bounce spell if you really need it to be. It's one-sided, only bouncing your opponents' stuff. And you can play it at instant speed - you can hold up mana and cast this just before your turn, leaving your opponents with nothing to defend themselves.
True, Cyclonic Rift doesn't destroy anything - given a few turns, your foes will be able to rebuild and come at you with a vengeance. But if you play this card correctly, they won't ever have that chance.
Cyclonic Rift is the terror of EDH tables everywhere, to the point where it has a firm spot on the new-ish table of Gamechangers.
17. Mishra's Bauble
The best free spell (that isn't in the Power 9)
Mishra's Bauble is a very strange card. An artifact that costs no mana, you can tap it and sacrifice it to look at the top of target player's library, then draw a card at the start of the next upkeep. So you play it, gain a very tiny amount of game information, sacrifice it, and replace it in your hand at the start of your next draw step. What's the point?
In terms of direct impact on the game, Mishra's Bauble might as well not exist - and if you want to increase the consistency of your draws, that's perfect. It effectively shrinks your deck so that instead of running 60 cards, you can run 56 (with some little timing hiccups).
Indirectly, it's useful in a lot of other ways. It's an artifact, and plenty of cards care about artifacts entering, leaving, or being on the battlefield. It's trivially easy to get it into your graveyard: that puts an Artifact into the graveyard, handy for turning on a Dragon Rage Channeller's Delirium ability or pumping up a 'Goyf, and providing another card. And as it's free to put it in play, and free to put into your graveyard, it's absolute fodder for infinite loops.
Obviously it's no Mox or Black Lotus, but as we noted at the start, this list would be really boring if we just went through the Power Nine.
18. Teferi's Protection
The best protection
If you want to keep your board away from harm, nothing does the job like Teferi's Protection. This spell not only keeps all your permanents safe, it also works as a fog until your next turn.
That's fantastic in multiplayer games like commander, and because the card is an instant, there's all sorts of ways to use it. You can pull a disappearing act in response to a boardwipe or attack, or use it on your own turn to prevent payback after overextending. There's no protection card as flexible and devastating as this one.
19. An Untapped Island
The scariest card to face
How we chose the best MTG cards
There are dozens more MTG cards, from Griselbrand to Ragavan, that we could've considered for this list, and there's no scientific way to determine if one Magic card is greater than another. All MTG cards depend on the context in which they're played, the formats they're available in, and the other cards that help to make them sing.
To make our selections of the best MTG cards ever, we've tried to find cards that are dominant in multiple formats, or that would be dominant if they hadn't been banned. We've also tried to include cards you might actually run into or be able to purchase yourself, avoiding the most expensive MTG cards, stuff on the Reserved List that most players can't possibly afford. Obviously, that means the MTG Power 9 is out right away, which is good; that would've made this quite a boring list.
If you've got suggestions for the list, why not share them in the Wargamer Discord community? To keep up to date with all the latest news and features from Wargamer, make sure you're subscribed to the Wargamer newsletter.